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The background on your web pages serves as your site design's foundation. Together and separately, the background color and background image you use go a long way toward determining how the site is perceived by visitors.
You might be tempted to use a full-screen background image to embellish your site, thinking it will make your site look bigger, better, and more professional than it is. Resist the urge.
You likely don't need to display a full-screen image to convey the important information you need to present.
A large image will be slow to load and will probably turn off your customers.
In general, background images, whether they are whole images or tiled patterns, tend to detract from a site's design. Computer monitor resolutions are much lower than the resolution of text printed with ink on paper, so web page legibility is already a challenge.
Images of varying tone and contrast that lurk behind the text of every page compound the problem and frustrate visitors, especially older users and those with less-than-perfect eyesight. Like "click here" or blinking text, background images can be a telltale sign of bloat.
That said, background images can be used effectively in areas of your web pages where they won't appear underneath text. In small doses, background images can divide sections in your design or add an artistic flair to the edge of your pages. Background colors, on the other hand, have a much better reputation. In fact, they can be an integral part of a site's color scheme and overall design small or large.
Though far from being a black-and-white issue, the spectrum of impressions generated by background colors runs roughly from luxury, mystery, entertainment, or a glimpse of an experience (with black or dark colors) to familiarity, necessity, or utility of informational sites (with white or lighter colors). Choose your background color wisely because it conveys a lot about your site's focus, mission, and purpose.
Page Grid and Navigation Zones
Most newspapers or magazines you see on your local newsstand have a professional look because they follow a well-defined grid from page to page and from issue to issue. A grid, or template, dictates where structural elements like page numbers go and establishes rules for things like column width and image size that dictate how pages should look.
You can achieve a similar professional look with your web pages by following a template or grid and basing all of your pages on it. A website grid divides your pages into areas for navigation, content, and other uses, such as marketing or advertising messages, administrative notices, or e-commerce tools.
Having a grid like this can really help ensure that you follow a consistent design layout for your site. If you take the time to look at some sites that have a consistent design, you'll likely find that they are based on a consistent design grid. By looking at different sites that you like, you'll be better able to produce a design grid of your own.
A grid is one of the strongest methods for enforcing consistency and avoiding clutter on your site. Consistency, in turn, evokes reliability, integrity, and trustworthiness. If you can't find a place in your grid for something you want to add, then it probably doesn't belong there.
Websites tend to be updated infrequently. And when the time comes to add a new page, it's usually enhanced with a "need it done yesterday" urgency. Basing your web pages on a predetermined template prevents the bloat-inducing mutations that occur when you design as you go.
You may want or need to deviate from your grid in some cases. For example, you may want to offer site-search results hosted on a third-party site or create a stripped-down special offer response page.
A well-designed site should be flexible enough to accommodate this. Another common way the page grid is altered on many sites is by creating a home page that references the design of the rest of the site while not strictly adhering to it.
Important Points
- The background on your web pages serves as your site design's foundation.
- Choose your background color wisely because it conveys a lot about your site's focus, mission, and purpose.
- Background images, whether they are whole images or tiled patterns, tend to detract from a site's design.
- In small doses, background images can divide sections in your design or add an artistic flair to the edge of your pages.
- You can achieve a professional look with your web pages by following a template or grid and basing all of your pages on it.
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